Asia, Europe, FX Outlook, Global Edge, Treasury Management

The Australian dollar (AUD) and the Canadian dollar (CAD) have a lot in common.
They are both backed by economies that are reliant on commodity exports. For
investors looking to hedge or speculate on commodities via foreign exchange,
they both provide ample liquidity as the world's sixth and seventh most traded
currencies.

“Have no friends not equal to yourself.” Confucius, The Confucian Analects“To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed.” Lao tzu, The Way of Lao tzu What’s interesting about the quotes from these two great sages

Given last week's break of 1.4000 by the euro as the focus on the Greek debt situation continues, I thought it would be good to take a deeper dive into where the different countries that make up the euro stand.First,

As they tend to do with remarkable frequency, politicians and regulators have become involved in various markets around the world over the past week, and the results have not been pretty for the most part.

On January 7 of this year, the day after his appointment as Japan's finance minister, Naoto Kan stated that there was a need for the yen to weaken in order to help Japanese exporters. The markets did not treat this statement lightly, for it effectively reverses the long-held position of his predecessor, Hirohisa Fujii, of allowing the value of the yen to be determined solely by market forces. Fujii-san had resigned earlier in the week due to ill health. Kan explained that he "must work with the Bank of Japan to bring the yen to appropriate levels given its impact on the economy" and that "many Japanese firms favor yen at around ¥95." The currency markets were caught completely off guard by his comments and responded by selling the yen in a panic, driving it lower by more than half a yen vs. the dollar -ultimately to ¥93.77, its lowest level versus the dollar since last August.

In today's business environment, escalating a technology company into the international marketplace may no longer be just an option, but a necessity for growth. However, like any significant endeavor, conducting business across borders also has its challenges.

More and more U.S. companies are generating an increasing share of their revenues from export sales. Over the years, a significant portion of these export sales have shifted towards open account terms with no payment guarantees (such as a traditional letter of credit). As the Ex-Im Bank explains, savvy CFOs should consider leveraging export credit insurance.

The holiday had brought tidings of comfort and joy for the USD and the U.S. market. Apart from the Asian economic recovery, recent U.S. employment data has lead to optimism that 2010 will bring further sustained economic improvement in the U.S. U.S. stocks marked recovery-trend highs, long yields ascending to four-month highs and the USD index rebounded to three-month highs.

2010 is likely to be the year of the global recovery. Thanks to the coordinated, sizeable and successful global policy stimulus, the world economy is entering 2010 in what appears to be the very early stages of the recovery. Across

What do Mexico, Greece and Dubai have in common besides warm weather? DEBT — mountains of it. And where there's smoke, there's fire. The real concern in the markets is who might be next. So far we've had a solid